Discovering the realities of college one step at a time.

Day 1: Saturday, 3/12

Unfortunately, I woke up to the noise of my roommate leaving our dorm at 4:30am and couldn't fall back asleep so I didn't get too much sleep. I ended up doing laundry at 6:30am and cleaning the dorm at 8am.

Cafe Mac (Macalester's cafeteria) doesn't open during Spring Break, so Jennifer and I decided to grab brunch before heading off to the airport. We learned our lesson from last time; we paid for an overpriced lunch at the airport and it wasn't even that great. This time, we visited The Neighborhood Cafe, about a 3 blocks' walk from campus, and ate brunch there. Overall, the meal was super fulfilling and definitely left me happy and satisfied. They were super busy and people were even waiting outside for tables at 9:30am.

After brunch, we finished cleaning our dorms and left for the airport at 1pm to catch a 2:25pm flight.

I ordered a Florentine Benedict, which includes English muffins with spinach, mushroom, and eggs benedict on top- along with hash browns

Leaving the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport!

Arrived at the Chicago-Midway airport after a short hourlong flight.

In case you don't already know from all of my food pictures, I'm an absolute foodie! I love trying new foods and am constantly hunting down the best (most authentic) places to eat Cantonese cuisine in the US. When I saw that Chicago's Chinatown had a highly rated Hong Kong-styled bakery, I HAD to go! So after Jennifer's dad picked us up from the airport, off to Chiu Quon Bakery we went! Most of the pastries were $1 or $1.25, cheaper than those in Atlanta, so I was very happy (and so was my wallet). I successfully(!) ordered in Cantonese and bought 1 蓮蓉餅 (Lotus seed paste pie), 2 蛋撻 (egg tarts), 1 葡撻 (Portuguese-styled egg tart), and 1 菠蘿叉燒包 ("Pineapple" barbecued pork bun).

I was really surprised when I shared the pastries with Jennifer's family- her sister really liked the egg tart (mostly because it's a less sweetened version of flan), and her dad loved the lotus seed paste pie and the pineapple bbq pork bun!

葡撻 (Portuguese-styled egg tart)

We were in a hurry, so I didn't get to take a photo of the bakery itself, but here's a photo of their bag? :D

I've eaten a Pineapple bun before (it's called a pineapple bun because of its appearance- not ingredient) and I've eaten a barbecued pork bun before. I don't think I've had both in ONE bun before! It was so good!

Day 2: Sunday, 3/13

After eating a brunch with the family, Jennifer drove me around Waukegan. The weather wasn't that great- rainy and gloomy.

Waukegan's lighthouse

For non-Mac students- the caption is a joke :D Macalester is located at 1600 Grand Avenue. And I managed to find a Grand Ave in Waukegan.

On a whim, Jennifer's parents decided to take all of us to Medieval Times, a dinner show that includes a jousting tournament set in... the Medieval time period. It was filled with not-so-real acting, but the show was really amusing to watch and I was thoroughly entertained :) Huge thanks to Jennifer's parents for taking all of us out to see the show!!! Muchas gracias!

With Jennifer and her younger sister, Laura, before the show!

An interesting thing about the dinner is that there are no utensils. We drank tomato soup straight from the bowl, and ate corn-on-the-cob, baked chicken, and baked potato with our hands.

The arena at the start of the show.

I'm currently writing this post at 12:09am, so I'm going to close my laptop and sleep now! Day 3 will be another chill day at Waukegan- hopefully, I'll end up getting some school work done too!